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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25659085">Throwing Trust</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thrushsong_kVaris/pseuds/Thrushsong_kVaris'>Thrushsong_kVaris</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Avatar: The Last Airbender</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Author is melting and has no energy to edit this, Don't Take This Too Seriously, Gen, i certainly didn't, i'm bad with names, silliness, this is somewhere between an outline and a story</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 02:55:38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,560</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25659085</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thrushsong_kVaris/pseuds/Thrushsong_kVaris</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>This bit of silliness was inspired by the phrase 'trust someone as far as you can throw them'.</p><p>In which Zuko associates friendship/trust/affection with literally throwing people around.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>42</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>165</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It starts when he’s thirteen and just at the point in his recovery that he can practice fire bending forms without collapsing from exhaustion. Zuko is adjusting to having less vision and having a teacher (Iroh) who actually <em>teaches</em> him rather than berating him for not being Azula. Sparring sessions are especially interesting.</p><p>The first crew member to spar with Zuko underestimates him and gets literally thrown across the deck within ten seconds. They keep sparring because the point of the spar is for Zuko to use the form Iroh was drilling him on, and [crewman] is an experienced sailor and knows how to take a fall without hurting himself. Zuko sends him flying eight more times before [crewman] manages to avoid the throw and Zuko actually uses the form Iroh wanted to see. This results in relentless teasing from the rest of the crew about getting his ass handed to him and literally sent flying repeatedly by a skinny thirteen-year-old brat, and [crewman] vigorously defends himself (the kid is <em>fast</em>, okay, and they all know the kid isn’t weak— they’ve seen him training for months now—and he’d like to see how <em>they</em> manage against the kid).</p><p>So the next week, Zuko has a different sparring partner. They also get thrown, although Zuko has to put in slightly more effort since [crew2] is expecting it. [crew2] manages to keep from getting thrown as many times as [crewman], but still gets sent flying multiple times. The rest of the crew now has two targets for their teasing, both of whom defend Zuko’s ability as a fighter. (Zuko’s slight change in behavior towards the two of them has nothing to do with overhearing them talking about how good a fighter he is, not at all.)</p><p>Another week; and Zuko has yet another volunteering sparring partner. This time, [crewwoman] goes all out against Zuko, believing that the kid’s previous sparring partners were going easy on the kid. This sends Zuko on the defensive, because [crewwoman] is taking full advantage of his impaired vision, and he hasn’t fully adjusted. About 10 minutes in, Zuko gets a reckless idea and takes a hit in the process of throwing [crewwoman]. (Iroh is slightly confused by his nephews insistence on throwing his opponents, but Zuko is very good at it, and it’s a move that takes advantage of the fact that Zuko is smaller than everyone else, so Iroh isn’t about to discourage it.) Contrary to his other matches, where Zuko had waited for his partners to recover from being thrown to continue, Zuko counterattacks as soon as [crewwoman] is back on her feet. She’s reluctantly impressed by his determination, even if he still has a few problems guarding his left side.</p><p>This continues, with Zuko getting a new sparring partner until he’s faced the entire crew. Every single one of them ends up hurled varying distances across the deck at least once during their spar. [crewwoman] wins bragging rights, having only been thrown by their brat Captain twice, everyone else got sent flying five or more times. (It’s immaterial to the crew that the spars stop whenever General Iroh decides the kid has practiced enough, rather than going until someone gets a ‘win’. The kid is amazing for his age, and they all know it.)</p><p>Zuko is both pleased with his crew’s now blatant respect and awkwardly confused. This ‘respect’ thing is very new to him and he has no idea how to respond. It shows. The crew is collectively very concerned by this because their brat Captain is a <em>Prince</em>, he shouldn’t be confused by people showing him respect. Baby crewmember (I’m twenty-seven, that’s more than ten years older than the Captain!) gets volun-told to befriend Zuko after the crew figures out that half of their Captain’s awkwardness is because he just doesn’t have much experience with <em>people</em>. No one is entirely sure how, because [crew baby] refuses to tell, but this results in Zuko deciding that throwing someone around is a sign of friendship. They would try to convince him otherwise, but his expression the one time [crewwoman] tried was so painful to see she took it back immediately and the entire crew spent the next week <em>letting</em> Zuko throw them to reassure the kid they still liked him.</p><p>Iroh actually takes a surprising amount of time to figure out the significance his nephew has attached to throwing people. He’s mostly just amused by his (still skinny and not fully grown) nephew’s ability to toss around the entire crew (all of them experienced fighters and most being very visibly taller than Zuko). Iroh is very pleased that his plans to get the crew to treat Zuko with respect by having them spar with him actually worked. He’s secretly over the moon when [crew baby] tries to befriend Zuko (his nephew needs friends, even if Iroh would prefer they were closer in age) and does his best to encourage Zuko to accept the friendship. He’s ecstatic when he finds out that the entire crew has essentially adopted Zuko as a younger sibling/cousin. It takes Iroh witnessing and event during the reassurance week to realize that Zuko’s habit of throwing people is much more significant than he had previously thought. Zuko comes up on deck before his lesson, walks up to a crewmember on deck and throws them a few feet, then walks away to the next one and does the same. He does this to every crewmember on deck without saying a word, just looks them in the eye and throws them over his shoulder. The crewmembers’ fondly amused looks are what gives it away (along with the fact that not one of the crew tries to avoid being thrown). Iroh’s response to this is to plan lessons with himself as Zuko’s partner, teaching him new ways to throw people around, and ensuring Zuko knows how to keep himself safe if his nephew is ever the one getting thrown.</p><p>Zuko is ecstatic. His tutors before <em>disapproved</em> of him throwing people, and he mostly thought Iroh was just tolerating it until he learned the <em>real</em> forms. Being <em>taught</em> more ways to throw people is amazing, and Uncle even lets Zuko <em>practice</em> on him! The crew grumbles a bit about General Iroh teaching their brat Captain more ways to throw them around, but the kid is so thrilled they can’t really complain. Several of them, including [crew baby], start volunteering for the General’s throwing lessons so they can try to learn to throw their Captain. Zuko is confused by this, until the sparring session where [crew baby] tries to throw Zuko for the first time. (He fails miserably, and it’s the first time any of them have seen the Prince laugh.) The fact that his crew likes him enough to not only let Zuko throw them around, but to throw him in return and still treat him with respect is what finally makes Zuko realize that his crew have decided he’s one of them.</p><p>Things get very confusing the first time they encounter the Avatar.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Changed rating because I realized that my minor use of cussing probably means this should be T.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Things get very confusing the first time they encounter the Avatar.</p><p>Aside from the fact that the Avatar is younger than Zuko and probably only knows air bending. The main problem for Zuko is that the Avatar throws him across a room (with air bending) while escaping from the ship, and then later in the fight Zuko retaliates by blasting the air bender over the side of the ship. As soon as the Avatar’s bison is out of sight, Zuko registers that the Avatar threw him around and then let Zuko return the favor—which means that the Avatar wants to be Zuko’s friend—and retreats to his room to panic in private. Iroh figures out what his nephew is panicking about and tries to subtly encourage Zuko to make new friends. Zuko misunderstands Iroh’s proverb and decides that the Avatar is a child and probably hasn’t been told he’s not supposed to be friends with his enemies; the Water Tribe siblings will set the kid straight and Zuko can continue his mission without worrying about it.</p><p>Sokka loves making plans, and he’s good at it. He knows all the best plans rely on the details. So, after Kyoshi Island, Sokka goes over the encounter—and realizes that 1) Angry Ponytail is insanely difficult to take down (the dude took on <em>four</em> Kyoshi warriors at once with no problem) and 2) Aang blasting him off his feet with air bending was the <em>only</em> attack that the Jerkbender didn’t immediately shake off or counter (Katara throwing water at the Jerkbender only resulted in the Jerkbender throwing <em>more fire</em> at her in response). He immediately goes about convincing Aang and Katara that knocking Angry Ponytail off his feet should be their goal if the guy manages to find them again, because they really shouldn’t be trying to fight this dude when they just proved that the best option is to <em>leave</em> as fast as possible if they want to avoid people getting hurt.</p><p>Zuko’s ability to work with his crew results in an increase in random encounters between the two groups. Their first such involves a tiny port town (which doesn’t actually have docks suitable for the Wani, so Zuko only had a five-man squad with him) and a somewhat chaotic chase through said town. Aang discovers to his misfortune that Zuko’s crewmembers are much more difficult to knock over when they’re <em>expecting</em> him to try (they might not be able to see the attack itself, but they can still see the kid swinging the staff). The squad still doesn’t manage to catch the kid, mostly because he keeps doing bizarre things like running up walls and leaping twenty feet in the air with no apparent effort. At one point Katara tries to use water from a well to grab Zuko and throw him: she doesn’t quite manage aiming correctly and throws him at Sokka by accident, which means that Sokka is still trying to get his breath back when Zuko recovers—and throws the Water Tribe boy back at his sister. Appa makes an appearance a moment later and Zuko mentally kicks himself because he should have thrown them <em>away</em> from each other so the Avatar would have had a harder time just air bending them onto the fluffy monster.</p><p>Zuko is increasingly confused after each encounter by the way he gets thrown around so much by this group of people who keep running away from him (they don’t seem to throw his crew around much at all, just him). It doesn’t take long for him to forget entirely about bringing the Avatar back to the Fire Nation—he wants to catch these infuriating people because that’s apparently the only way he’ll be able to get some answers out of them. (One random encounter Sokka accidentally gets separated from the other two and Zuko’s crew plays keep away by throwing the Water Tribe boy from person to person while the air bender flies overhead trying to get him back. Zuko focuses on keeping the water bender from noticing what his crew is doing and trying not to laugh at the Water Tribe boy’s attempts to turn the tables on his crew by throwing <em>them</em>.) The usual shenanigans ensue, but modified because the goal of their encounters has somehow morphed into ‘the group with the most throws wins’. The bystanders are <em>so</em> confused by this group of Fire nation soldiers who act like they’re playing a game of hide-and-throw rather than actually fighting the Avatar and his companions.</p><p>The Pirates encounter goes off track from the beginning, because Zuko is the only one allowed to catch his maybe-friends and working with these pirates is out of the question. (It <em>may</em> have been overkill to distract them from the Avatar’s group by sabotaging the ship.) Zuko’s crew may be experienced, but they are not used to being stealthy. Their attempt to sneak up on the water bender is foiled by unfortunately timed armor creaks (it’s definitely Lt. Jee’s fault). They chase after the water bender, but the experience of being saved by Appa during multiple random encounters makes Katara less inclined to dismiss the usefulness of the bison whistle, so by the time they all make it to the camp everyone is awake and the sight of Zuko’s crew chasing Katara is more than enough to get the boys scrambling onto Appa.</p><p>Pouhai happens mostly the same except Zuko’s response to the friendship question is to throw Aang across the clearing. Zuko is confused and frustrated because the kid ran away <em>again</em> right afterwards. His frustration provokes the thought that the Avatar’s group is purposely taunting him with the illusion of offering friendship so they could laugh in his face for falling for it. Iroh and the crew are seriously alarmed by Zuko’s abrupt fall into brooding depression and try everything they can think of to reassure and/or distract Zuko. [crew baby] manages to convince Zuko to talk a little…and then has no idea what to do about it. He settles for reassuring Zuko that he was right about the crew and suggests that the Avatar was just…really worried about the Water Tribe siblings? Later, the crew collectively comes up with about twenty different (ridiculous and unbelievable) ways to convince the Avatar’s group that this is an actual part of Fire Nation culture before Iroh steps in and convinces them things will work out <em>without</em> the crew yelling ‘friendship’ every time they throw one of the trio.</p><p>Zhao is the worst and Zuko hated him even before the bastard tried to murder him (twice!)—Iroh has to call dibs on murdering Zhao to keep the entire crew from trying to storm the man’s ship to kill him—and Zuko does his best to actively sabotage the creep’s attack on the North with his crew’s eager assistance. (You can’t pull off a successful siege if your own troops don’t have enough supplies.) Iroh finds out Zhao is up to something during the siege and alerts the crew and Zuko—all of them end up following Zhao’s squad to the oasis and things devolve into utter chaos. During the chaos, Zhao manages to catch the moon, Iroh threatens him into releasing it, and [crewwoman] unknowingly saves the moon by preemptively murdering Zhao before he can target her Captain again. The Gaang is now majorly confused because Zuko helped keep Aang from getting kidnapped, but then turned around and started throwing them again once Zhao was down. The North Pole edition of hide-and throw ends with the crew ‘accidentally’ throwing the Gaang (+Yue) at Appa, at which point Sokka grabs the reins and steers them away from the North Pole (after reluctantly stopping to leave Yue at the palace). Iroh takes advantage of Zhao’s ‘tragic’ demise to take command of the fleet, call off the siege, and reassign Zuko’s crew back to his nephew.</p><p>Zuko spends most of the trip south being aggressively fussed at by his crew because he hadn’t told them he was <em>on their ship</em> when it was destroyed and he shouldn’t have been in the middle of a battle with that many injuries. (Zuko will never admit that his crew showing concern for his health makes him feel happy.)</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Right, so hopefully this was enjoyable :)</p><p>I need a bit of help for the next one, because I want Toph to use a different nickname for Zuko, and I kinda want it to reference him throwing people...any ideas?</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Yeah...idk where this came from, but it wouldn't leave me alone until I typed it so here it is. Um, there's actually more...if y'all are interested in reading it.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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